It is usually only in Hollywood political thrillers or the feverish imaginations of extremists that the American constitutional order is upended by an unconstitutional coup against an elected government.

The vast majority of political figures in our history — Republican or Democrat — have been deeply committed to our democratic society and system.

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That is, until Republican Donald Trump came to town.

Furious over their election loss in 2016 and throwing out the window over 200 years of the primacy of peaceful transition of power, those on the extreme Left as well as many Democrat office holders called for the newly sworn-in President Trump to be removed from office for actions he did not yet have time in office to commit.

One of the those anti-democratic extremists, not very coincidentally, is the lawyer representing the CIA informer — a person whose fanciful recollections of a Ukrainian quid pro quo are the basis for the current Democratic push for impeachment and the Dem-led House impeachment inquiry.

Attorney Mark Zaid, in January of 2017, less than a month after Trump took office, tweeted about a “coup” against the president.

He also pledged to “get rid of him.”

The president, bound by his oath of office to protect the Constitution, is having none of it.

Here’s what he tweeted early on Thursday morning:

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GOP leaders are joining in the legitimate outrage against the Zaid-desired usurpation of democratic norms.

See this reaction, for example.

Faced with a critical onslaught from across the spectrum, Zaid is retreating fast into an old crisis-management standby.

He’s trying to change the subject and blame the messenger.

Here’s a tweet of Zaid’s, by the way, from February 2017:

The time-worn and predictable maneuver of changing things up and trying to distract is so transparent as to have the opposite effect of acting as an alarm bell signaling desperation on the part of the user.

The president made great use of Zaid’s call for sedition at a 2020 re-election campaign rally in Monroe, Louisiana, on Wednesday night.

He quoted from a Fox News piece that detailed Zaid’s 2017 prediction that “a coup has started.”

“Democrats must be accountable for their hoaxes and their crimes,” said Trump, about the impeachment effort and alleged Democrat corruption of the political system, to an enthusiastic response from the 10,000 or so Trump supporters in attendance.

The president wasn’t the only one at the rally with a comment on the current political scene.

The president was also in the state of Louisiana to endorse and campaign for Louisiana businessman Eddie Rispone.

Rispone is the GOP nominee running to displace incumbent Democrat governor John Bel Edwards.

Edwards has played down any disagreements with Trump and has cast himself as a conservative Louisiana Democrat concerned with only state issues.

But if Edwards holds off Rispone, Trump will take a hit.

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